Archive for the ‘ALLERGIES’ Tag

08/17/2024 “GESUNDHEIT”   Leave a comment

Do you like hot, humid, and sticky weather? Do you really and truly love having everything you own covered in green pollen? I’ve spent most of my life dreading the arrival of Spring and Summer and hay fever season. I have no known allergies to food or medicines but the one allergy I do have is the worst, Pollen. I spent many summers playing baseball in all kinds of weather and suffered through pollen attacks every year. Over the years doctors have tried every medicine known to man to help me with this allergy with absolutely no positive results.

Just as an example, I cut the grass yesterday, and I was partially incapacitated for a couple hours after I was done because I couldn’t catch my breath, and I couldn’t stop sneezing. I’m sure there are hundreds of thousands of people out there with the same allergy and they have my sympathies because no matter what you’re told nobody has a clue on how to properly deal with it. I guess that’s why the company that makes Benadryl has done so well through the years. I have a large jar of Benadryl in my nightstand and for about two weeks every Spring I eat them like jellybeans (and sleep a lot).

The only good thing that comes out of this allergy is my ability to sneeze 20-25 times a day. This might sound a little weird, but I love sneezing. I had a dear friend explain to me many years ago that one sneeze equals approximately 1/8 of an orgasm. So, if I sneeze 24 times a day I get three free orgasms, no charge. You know what they say, when life gives you free orgasms, smile and enjoy them. Here are a few things you might also want to know about sneezing . . .

  • The Greeks believed if you sneeze to the left, bad luck was in your future. If you turn to the right during the sneeze, you will prosper.
  • Ancient people believed a sneeze could give you an advantage in an argument. If your opposer believed evil spirits escaped the body during a sneeze, you could easily ‘spook‘ him by sneezing near him. This would throw him off guard and help you win the argument.
  • Good luck is in your future if you sneeze when going to bed. But don’t sneeze on your partner. Otherwise, good luck or not, you will not have a partner for long.
  • If you feel a sneeze coming on, but you don’t sneeze, watch out! That means you are going to lose someone or something dear to you.
  • There are some ‘cures’ for sneezing. Press your upper lip hard and recite the alphabet backwards. No particular alphabet is recommended.

  • You can stop a sneeze just by pressing on your lip, just below your nostrils. That apparently deactivates the sneeze mechanism.
  • Every culture has the custom of invoking some god or spirit after a sneeze. The “God Bless You” originated with the Christians. But it’s a carryover from the Romans who took to invoking Jupiter to preserve them every time they sneezed.
  • A Zulu child is taught to say “Grow.” To the Zulus, sneezing is a sign of good health. In Persian culture, everyone in the presence of someone who sneezes prays. The Arabs avoid sneezing entirely by washing out their noses with water each evening.
  • Sneezes have even inspired a rhyme. It even matters what day of the week you sneeze. Here’s the rules . . .

Sneeze on Monday, sneeze for danger.

Sneeze on Tuesday, kiss a stranger.

Sneeze on Wednesday, receive a letter.

Sneeze on Thursday, receive something better.

Sneeze on Friday, sneeze for sorrow.

Sneeze on Saturday, see your lover tomorrow.

Sneeze on Sunday, your safety seat,

Or the Devil will have you, the rest of the week.

MAY BUDDHA BLESS YOU

12/15/2021 Gesundheit ??   Leave a comment

I’ve never been a person plagued with any major allergies except for ragweed in the summer. Prior to puberty I was haunted by any number of allergies, but they went away at about age 14. Jump forward a few decades and all of a sudden, my allergies have returned with a bang. It appears that I’ve been around just long enough to go back through puberty in the opposite direction. That being said it’s a given that I’m sneezing a lot more than I’ve ever sneezed in my life. There are many reasons for sneezing and I’m not about to try and list them all. Let’s just agree, sneezing is sneezing, everybody does it, and that’s that. Since I come from a German background all I’ve ever heard when there was a sneeze going on was the German word gesundheit. It’s an automatic response meaning “good health”. I honestly never had any idea what it meant and only found out just recently.

I decided to check out a few other cultures to see if there was anything unusual about their responses to sneezing.

  • In many Muslim countries it translates out to “May Allah have mercy on you.”. Pretty cool but way too long.
  • In Serbia, they use the term pis maco, with children, which means “Go away, kitten”. Cute, I guess.
  • In Vietnam, cơm muối, is offered and means “rice with salt.” Thats a real puzzler.
  • Latin America’s is a little more interesting. The first sneeze earns a response of “health,” the second “money,” and the third “love.”  I like this one the best.
  • A common story holds that around the year 750, Pope Gregory believed that a sneeze was an early sign of the contraction of the bubonic plague. Saying “God bless you” was a sort of deathbed prayer: ‘May God see your worth and help you, because you’re definitely about to die.” Isn’t that just heartwarming?
  • And “God bless you” seems to be very popular response with many cultures but of course not for those pesky atheists. They’re a little touchy about the “GOD” word.

So much for my sneezing trivia. Now that I’ll be housebound for the next four winter months breathing all of this unhealthy stale air, I suppose I’ll be hearing “Gesundheit” way too many times for the foreseeable future.

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